Her Man
by Melpomene blue
Summary: Everything was dark - dark and painful in a decidedly fuzzy way. She should never have accepted that third glass of wine.
1. Chapter 1

**Her Man**

_Standard disclaimers apply…_

Everything was dark - dark and painful in a decidedly fuzzy way. She should never have accepted that third glass of wine. Or the fourth. Had there been a fifth glass? She couldn't remember.

Struggling against the cottony fog that seemed to have invaded every nook and cranny of her brain, she tried to stretch out an arm in a sleepy, half-conscious effort to locate... her arm would not move. Not just her arm - her entire body was immobile. Just exactly how much did she drink last night?

As she fought through the fuzzy fog, the pain surged to overwhelming proportions, stilling even the slight movements of her muscles as she stopped straining against… against whatever it was that was preventing her from moving.

She blinked rapidly in a vain attempt to clear the darkness from her vision. No matter what she tried, it was nothing but futility in the end. With unrelenting waves of pain radiating along her bones and growing to a crescendo in her skull, she concentrated on relaxing her muscles. She closed her eyes - straining to see in a world of pure darkness was not helping her situation. She only hoped the darkness was due to a distinct lack of light and not blindness. Struggling to maintain some semblance of calm, she began to tally up all that she was able to discern.

She was hurt, that much was extremely obvious, but she couldn't pinpoint where specifically the pain was coming from. So far as she could determine, the pain seemed to originate from her bones themselves. Giving up on that line of thought, she tried again to compile the facts.

Pain, darkness, cold… she was cold. The chill of whatever it was she was laying on spread up through the fabric of her clothing and into her skin, causing shivers to send trembles through her arms and legs, igniting the pain anew. She ignored the pain as much as she was able and tried to refocus.

Pain, darkness, cold. There had to be something else, some other clue as to what was happening. She couldn't feel anything that might have been used to bind her, no rope or tape or anything like that. So far as she could tell, the only reason she couldn't move was a lack of cooperation between her brain and her body.

Whatever it was she was laying on was hard. There was no way she was still in bed. Whatever it was, it was hard, unforgiving and damned cold. Possibly the floor or a table. Why would she be lying on a table? She must be on the floor, somewhere… somewhere not at home because this floor felt nothing like the floor at home.

Just as a glimmer of familiarity began to try to take hold, she felt a sharp jab on her arm, followed by the return of the foggy cotton that sought to fill her skull.

* * * * *

"Walsh!"

He lifted his eyes from the report that had been thrust toward him the moment he had stepped in to the precinct.

"What is this? It's an all boy's day?"

"What?"

"Beaumont and Shraeger decide to bond today?"

"Not that I'm aware. Why?"

Brown shrugged, turning to leave Walsh's desk.

"I haven't seen Beaumont today."

That caught Brown's attention. "You haven't? I thought you two were…"

"We are."

"Are you having…"

"No disagreements that I know of, unless she had another dream that I yelled at her."

Brown raised his brow.

Ignoring him, Walsh put down the file. "When I got up, Beaumont was already gone. I thought she might have had an early assignment today."

They both turned to watch Cole slowly stride into the room, cup of coffee in hand and a small bakery bag tucked under his arm.

"I would guess there was no early assignment."

Brown shook his head. "Maybe they decided to meet for breakfast"

"Beaumont and Shraeger?"

"The partner and the girlfriend. I'm glad I'm not in your shoes, Walsh."

"She's not my girlfriend," Walsh added as the sergeant began to leave."

"But you just said…"

"Like I told Shraeger, I'm not twelve. She's my woman."

…_.part one of more, to be continued at a later date…_


	2. Chapter 2

She roused again. There was no means of determining how much time had passed and trying to think about it only caused the pain in her head to grow more persistent. Although still groggy, she was able to assess more of her situation than she had previously.

She was, more or less, unbound but remained immobilized by some other means - most likely by whatever it was they had shot her up with to knock her out. She couldn't see anything because she was blindfolded. The edge of the cloth that had been used to cover her eyes stretched stiffly across the bridge of her nose and made her worry about the amount of drug she had been given that it could cause her to fail to notice something so obvious as that. The same kind of material had been used as a gag as well but seemed superfluous since her jaw was no more willing to respond to her urging than any other of her muscles. She was also able to determine that she was laying on concrete, which generally meant a floor of some kind.

Drugged, gagged, blindfolded and dumped on a bare concrete floor. What a way to start the morning. She should have ignored her cell phone that morning and stayed exactly where she had been before leaving the house - cozy and toasty and snuggled up between soft sheets, am intoxicatingly warm body next to her.

A door opened somewhere but, despite the fact that her senses were on the road to recovering, they weren't yet fully restored and she couldn't tell where the sound came from. She would have jerked at the sudden sound had her muscles been the least bit cooperative. Instead, she remained on the ground as she had been, blind but listening for any clues about who had taken her and why.

The most unnerving aspect of the entire situation was the distinct lack of noise. Who ever it was that had entered the room was silent, if they moved across the floor she couldn't hear their footsteps. They didn't speak. They didn't even breathe heavily. There was no sound at all and so the first strike to her ribs caught her entirely by surprise.

Unable to move in any way to defend herself from the silent attack, the second kick was less unexpected but just as painful, if not more so. The blows continued, long past the point that she could keep track of their number. Long past the point she lost her tenuous hold on consciousness.

* * * * *

The bullpen was crowded and loud, thanks to the bus load of witnesses that had been brought in for questioning about an armed robbery that took place right next to their stalled tour bus. From all appearances, the fifty-four Wisconsin octogenarians were having a delightful time. Walsh smiled and refused, for the fifth time that morning, the phone number of one of the blue-haired ladies granddaughters, despite the assurances that she was a terrific cook and was the sweetest thing you could ever hope to meet. He had his own sweet thing to track down and the noise and confusion were not helping.

He took his seat at his desk, lifting the phone to his ear for the umpteenth time and working to block out the background noise that seemed to be festering in the room. Waiting for the tone, he spoke. "Hey Al, it's me. We're beginning to worry about you. Give us a call at the station, why don't you. Just - just call and let us know you're okay."

"Still nothing?"

He turned a cool gaze on his partner.

"Yeah, well, that much is obvious, I guess." Casey neatened the papers on her desk.

"Where were you this morning?"

"Huh? What?"

Walsh titled his head slightly. "You were late. Brown made a comment about you and Beaumont bonding over breakfast."

Casey shook her head. "I just woke up late's all. It took me longer to get here than I was expecting." she ducked her head. "Why would Beaumont and I meet up for breakfast, anyway?"

"Brown seemed to think you two might have some information to share."

"Me and Beaumont? No." Casey smiled at the thought though. It could be a very intriguing breakfast proposition. "You been calling Beaumont's cell phone?"

"Yeah. She's only had it a few weeks, keeps leaving it at home but I didn't see it when I was headed out this morning."

Casey pursed her lips. "She's probably just tied up somewhere. She'll be in as soon as she can. She can take care of herself."

Walsh smiled. "That, I'm not worried about." He greeted the next tour bus witness and invited them to take a seat at his desk while he took down the exact same report he had been taking all morning. A young man, twenty to twenty-five years old, medium height, clean shaven and with short brown hair, dressed in a very nice dark pin-striped business suit robbed the hotdog vendor. The young man's weapon of choice, a long bow and arrows.

"I've got a delivery for… Sergeant Brown?" A uniformed courier stood in the midst of the elderly tourists, a parcel the size of a shoe box tucked under his arm.

"Eddie Alvarez can take that," he stepped forward, straightening his tie as he went. A self-assured smugness settling in the crease of his mouth.

The courier eyed him suspiciously. "Why? I'm looking for Brown."

"Sergeant Brown's not here but I am in charge during his absence."

The courier shrugged. "Whatever. Look, I just need a signature and the assurance that you'll open the parcel as soon as possible."

"Why?" Alvarez turned the package over in his hands, examining the brown paper wrapping as if it might provide some clue as to the contents.

"I dunno, that's just what the special instructions say."

Alvarez smiled, signing the proffered form with a flourish. "I'll open it right away."

Walsh had managed to ignore most of the interaction, focusing instead on the witness who had claimed his spare chair and was flipping through a small photograph album filled with pictures of her granddaughters and great-nieces. They had made it half-way through the images when he felt a presence behind him and turned in his chair.

Pale, far paler than usual, and still, Alvarez motioned for Walsh to follow him to Brown's office. Noting the unusual activity, Casey bid her own witness farewell and slipped through the door just as it was swinging closed.

…_to be continued at a later date…_


	3. Chapter 3

"Walsh."

He cut his eyes at his partner before returning his attention to Brown's morning replacement. "Alvarez."

"You know that while Sergeant Brown's out of the office for his appointment this morning, I'm in charge."

Walsh slowly nodded. "That would explain why we're in Brown's office - without Brown, that is." He jerked his head toward the closed office door. "Since that's cleared up, we've got a lot of very old tourists to interview about the young businessman of Sherwood."

"Heh, that's good. Funny." Alvarez shuffled uncomfortably around the desk, finally sliding down into the seat.

"Just repeating what dispatch has been calling him all morning."

"Was there a reason you wanted to see us?" Casey deliberately ignored the fact that she had included herself without any provocation from Alvarez to indicate her presence was wanted.

"Yes. Yes, there was." He lifted the box from the crumpled paper it had been wrapped in and paused. "You saw when this was delivered a while ago?"

"Yeah. Delivery guy came in about, what, half a hour ago?" Walsh nodded, waiting.

"There were a couple of items in it. A video disc and this." He gently laid a long lock of dark hair on the desk top.

"Kidnapping?" Walsh picked up the hair, letting it twist around his fingers absently.

Casey studied it from her chair. "That must have hurt." The hank of strands had been pulled out by the roots.

"I already called Sergeant Brown. He's on his way back to the precinct. He thought you would want to start gathering information immediately. We'll have two detectives from another precinct sent over to actually run the investigation."

"Alvarez, what are you talking about?"

Eddie blanched. "You should watch the video probably." He turned the laptop around so that the screen faced Walsh and Shraeger.

With a long-suffering sigh, Walsh leaned back into the chair he had claimed. "This better not be a joke."

Alvarez froze for a moment. "I hope it is a joke. I really hope it is." He hit a key on the laptop. "It would be a sick prank but that would be better than the alternative."

With a frown, Casey focused her attention on the screen and the video that began playing. It was amateurish and jerky, fading in and out of focus and severely underexposed. All that was discernable at first was that the video was taking place in a room somewhere. After several seconds, the camera settled down, the room stilled on the screen and the lens closed in on a dark shape on the floor although there was still not sufficient light to determine what the shape was. The room was suddenly flooded with light, temporarily whitewashing the screen before the camera was able to accommodate the change in lighting. The shape was a body but the face was turned from the camera. Dark slacks and a dark red blouse were offset by bruise-mottled skin. All Casey could tell about the victim was that they were female and, thanks to the slight movement of their chest, that they were still alive.

"The hair's hers?"

Alvarez nodded. "I believe so. We've sent a sample out for testing but it will be a while before we can get any information back on it. But, keep…"

The camera moved, angling from one side of the room to the other and sweeping over the victim to focus on her face. Even with the blindfold and gag, Casey knew there was no doubt as to the identity of the victim. She let her eyelids slide shut, relishing the darkness that blotted out the sight of Allison Beaumont's battered body.

Then, as if the video was not enough, Alvarez placed one more item on the desk. "This was also in the box."

Casey opened her eyes again, and watched as Alvarez slid Walsh's watch toward him. It was the same watch Beaumont had been robbed of by the crime slut; the watch Walsh's grandfather had given him and he, in turn, had lent to Allison. The same watch Beaumont wore most of the time these days since it kept better time than her own.

Walsh just stared at it.

"It's been dusted for prints but there's nothing. It was wiped clean. No blood either, so that's a good thing."

Walsh's eyes slid from the watch back to the monitor that had paused on the image of Beaumont's face,. One of her hands lay near her head on the floor, her fingers slightly curled toward her palm; he pushed away the memory of how those fingers felt against his skin. "Or they took it off her before they started beating the crap out of her." He tipped his head. "I'd say she's got some broken fingers there at least and the bruising to her arm and face... The question is, what are we going to do about this?"

Eddie Alvarez looked decidedly uncomfortable. "Sergeant Brown will be here within the hour. An APB has already been put out on Detective Beaumont. But in order to begin the investigation into her abduction, I need to ask you a few questions."

Walsh tensed. "We were home, together, last night. Went to bed around midnight. When I woke up this morning, she was already gone."

"What time was that?"

"Six thirty. I noticed her phone and my watch were both missing. It looked like she'd already taken a shower."

"Does she typically leave before you wake up?"

Walsh sighed and rubbed his face. "No. We usually walk out the door together. I figured she had something to do this morning - an early start to a case or something."

"And that wouldn't be cause for you to be concerned?"

Walsh narrowed his eyes. "Allison's an adult who is perfectly capable of taking care of herself. Why would it concern me for her to leave by herself? Whoever nabbed her knew what they were doing. We're not talking about some weakling preteen here, this is Beaumont. She wouldn't have gone without a fight."

"She's awfully still," Casey commented softly.

"What?"

Indicating the monitor, she continued, "Beaumont's not tied up but she isn't moving either. Not even little muscle twitches. It's just strange for her to be so still."

…_to be continued at a later date…_


	4. Chapter 4

The fact that her wrists and ankles were bound when she drifted back to consciousness did not elude her. If her captor was now bothering to tie her up, perhaps they had opted to forgo the drugs they had been so happily pouring into her veins. It gave her the hope that, with a clear head, she would be able to figure a way out of the situation she so desperately wanted to escape. However, it also gave her cause for concern. The abuse she had suffered thus far had only been meted out, so far as she could tell, while she was conscious. Not being drugged meant she would be conscious a good deal more than before.

She tested the restraints but they allowed for no movement. She was still on the ground and the muscles that had stubbornly refused to cooperate before now trembled from the extreme cold that seeped into her skin from the hard cement beneath her. Still trying to work at the knots of her restraints enough to allow herself at least a fraction of slack, she jumped violently as she heard the click of the door.

Silently, she scolded herself for the obvious fear. She was a cop, damn it. The click of a door latch should not send waves of icy terror coursing through her like a flood. If only she could see, if she could prepare herself for whatever was to come.

The gentle caress of her cheek startled her more than any amount of violence would have and she struggled frantically to distance herself from the tenderness. The gag made coherent speech impossible but didn't prevent her from trying.

"Shhh…" The whisper was disturbingly close to her ear. So close that she could feel the moist warmth of her captor's breath against her neck.

The harsh rasp of the man's voice continued as he began to gently stroke her hair. "Hush now, Allison. This is when it becomes worth all the effort and pains I've been taking for so very long. This is when my hard work and planning comes to fruition. You know, you weren't even part of the plan, not at first, not for a long time. But it's poetic justice now, you see." He slowly traced the line of her jaw with his other hand.

She screamed a slurred, "No!" into the gag, struggling to put any amount of distance between them. She found she was only able to scoot a few inches across the cement floor before it became evident that she wasn't only bound hand and foot. She was bound _to _something.

Her panicked movements did nothing to dissuade her attacker. His hand cupped the back of her head, sliding slowly down to circle her neck, his fingers dragging lightly across the hollow of her throat and slipping beneath the collar of her blouse. Real terror spurred her to continue fighting even when she knew it would be a futile gesture. She refused to give the man any advantage without a fight - even when she silently knew he already had _all _the advantage.

"But first things first," the man murmured, withdrawing his hands. "I believe our mutual friend will be very anxious to bear witness to this. It's too bad really that he won't be able to see it first hand, but I'll be certain he gets to see every second of it thanks to my trusty camera here. Don't worry your pretty little head about that, he won't miss a single thing. Won't that be a video to remember?"

The tell tale warmth of the man's body vanished from her side but the uncontrollable trembles that shook her form had nothing to do with the cold. Struggling to convince herself that this was not happening, she jerked violently when the man returned.

"Now, let's get this started, shall we? And remember, Allison, Jason will be watching this a little later so let's give him a good show."

* * * * *

Brown sat at his desk, his eyes glued to the image of one of his own detectives frozen on the computer screen. Peripherally, he could see Walsh ensconced at his desk, working furiously to compile a list of anyone who might have a grudge against Beaumont. Detective Cole was similarly occupied, a pile of case files cluttering his usually tidy desk. Every so often, Cole's eyes would stray to the Christ figurine next to his computer. Brown wondered how many prayers had been given up for Beaumont's protection and safe return. He knew he had silently said one of his own the first time he had seen the video.

The had been working non-stop for hours. Compiling lists of possible perpetrators, searching for any leads they could from their desks, imagining any number of scenarios that would allow Beaumont to be abducted, and desperately trying to keep their thoughts away from what they feared was happening to her now. Walsh's neighborhood had been canvassed in the hope that someone might have seen her leave that morning but no one had come forward with any information. With the passage of time, the tension in the precinct had grown to the point that the detectives were drawn do taut he worried they would soon begin snapping. Cool, calm, level-headed Walsh would be the first to go and, although to would do nothing to help them bring Beaumont home any faster, he wouldn't blame him.

"Sergeant Brown?"

He turned to face his office door, watching Shraeder impassively.

"Beaumont's cell phone records came in. She received a call around five this morning. I followed up on the number but it's one of those pre-paid throw away phones - there's no personal information on the purchaser. At the time of the call, the phone used seems to have most likely been somewhere within a three block radius of Walsh's diner."

"Whoever it was called Beaumont and then waited for her to hit the street."

"It seems that way. They must have been waiting for her, probably grabbed her as soon as she left the diner or soon thereafter. There's a shop less than a block away that received a delivery around that same time. The clerk on duty never saw her walk by."

"She could have walked the other way."

Schraeger slowly shook her head. "The other end of the block was completely closed off, both the street and the sidewalks, due to a sewage leak the city was trying to deal with. I'm pretty sure Beaumont wouldn't have gone wading through that. Her only other option would have been to go toward the shop. The clerk said he was out on the sidewalk smoking from around 4:50 until the delivery truck arrived at 5:20. He never saw a female pedestrian but he did see a van drive past the store. He says he remembered it because it came from the end of the block that had been blocked off."

"Okay, I'll pass that along to Mozetti and Chambers."

Schraeger looked pensive. "From over at the fourth?"

"They're good detectives and they have no ties to Beaumont except that she's NYPD."

Schraeger nodded again. "Yeah, that's good. They're good detectives - the best."

"What I need from you now is for you to get your partner out of here. He's no use to the investigation - he's too emotionally involved with this. Sitting around the precinct is not going to help him or us. Take him back to the diner, to your apartment, to some bar somewhere - I don't care, just get him out of here."

"We're all too emotionally involved."

"Which is why I called the fourth and requested their best detectives to take the lead on this."

"There was something else that crossed my mind, sir." Her own need to stay somewhere near the precinct added to the thought that she was never going to be able to drag Walsh out of the building. Anything she could say that would drag out their stay seemed to be a good option.

"Yeah?"

"This is Beaumont we're talking about. She wouldn't have gone out at five in the morning to meet up with a stranger, at least not alone and Walsh was right there. If she needed some kind of backup, she would have woken up Walsh."

"The same thing crossed my mind."

"So now she was abducted by someone she knows?"

"Or, more likely, she got a phone call from someone posing to be someone she knows or they threatened someone she knows."

Casey leaned against a chair. "I like that."

"Which is why we are not leading this investigation." He pinned her with a hard look. "We can't allow our emotions to run the investigation if we expect to get Beaumont back. Now, go get your partner out of here. I'll keep you informed of anything that comes up. I promise."

…_to be continued…_


	5. Chapter 5

Casey walked out of Brown's office and headed straight to her partner's desk. "Walsh, come on. We're out of here."

"What? Where?"

"Out, apparently. Just out." She kept walking until she had made her way out into the hall only to turn around and walk back to Walsh's desk when she realized he had yet to move. "We're getting out from under foot because none of us has actually made any headway since we found out Beaumont was kidnapped."

"You canvassed my neighborhood."

"And came up with a possible van and no actual witnesses. As far as good days go, this isn't one so far as our detective skills go."

Walsh's voice was flat when he responded, "We're not the only ones having a bad day."

"Yeah." She nudged his shoulder. "Let's go."

"I don't want to leave."

Casey paused long enough to physically encourage her partner out of his chair. "Neither do I but if we want to run rough shod over policies and procedures once we get Beaumont back, we need to pretend to play by the rules now."

They spent the morning sitting at the Chinese restaurant across from the precinct, their eyes glued to the windows. Casey jumped every time a phone rang, waiting to hear any word from Brown. And as tightly as she was wound, Walsh was even more so.

"You know, Al wanted to invite you and, your… whatever over for dinner some time."

"Davis? Me and Davis? You know, that would be great. We'll have to figure something out once Beaumont get back."

"Yeah, she brought it up last night over dinner. Thought it would be fun… I don't know. Al's got an interesting sense of humor sometimes." He rubbed his face and stared down into the cold cup of tea the waitress had given him hours earlier. "I keep hoping she's going to turn up, walk in through the door with a dopey smile and admit this has all been some elaborate practical joke she set up with Alvarez."

Casey's lips tightened into a thin line. "I know exactly what you mean. But Walsh, you know Beaumont better than any of the rest of us, you know she'll be okay."

"Nah." He shook his head. "I don't know that. I wish I did but I don't."

They stayed at the same booth, waiting for any word to reach them. As the day wore on, they were joined by others who had been banned from the precinct or shuffled off on superfluous cases. No one was willing to stray too far.

Brown was the last to join them, sitting down at the booth just in time for a late dinner to be served. They were very quiet while their plates were slowly emptied, all but Walsh's whose dinner sat untouched. Casey had known he wouldn't eat, he hadn't eaten anything all day, but she had needed to make the attempt to at least provide him with food should he decide to humor her.

She tried to focus on her own food, paying far too much attention on how many times she chewed each mouthful. If she didn't, her thoughts would stray to the million and one possible circumstances her partner's girlfriend might be enduring.

"Go home, all of you," Brown finally said once he was done with his dinner. "None of you are doing her any good moping around here. You," he pinned Walsh with a stern look, "need to get home, shower, sleep and eat something. She's going to need all the support she can get once we do get her back and you won't be any good to her or anyone else if you don't at least pretend to take care of yourself."

"What have you found out?"

Brown cut his eyes quickly at Casey. "We got another message from this perp and sent it off for analysis. Hopefully the lab guys will be able to give us something useful from what he sent. We need a little bit of luck on our side tonight."

"What was in the message?" Walsh's voice was soft and rough.

Brown stood up quickly, motioning Casey and Walsh to join him. He nodded at the rest of the men at the booth before making his way to the door with Casey and Walsh following close behind. They were out on the sidewalk before Brown spoke.

"What I said before, about Beaumont needing you to take care of yourself - I wasn't just being paternalistic, she's going to need support once we do find her. From what the video showed…"

"He sent a video?"

"Streaming online realtime video - he sent the link. Listen Walsh, the lab guys seemed to be under the impression that they would be able to pull enough information from the video link to locate where she's being held. If that's the case, and I am praying that it is, we'll be able to get her out of that place sooner rather than later. Either way, she's going to need you to be one hundred percent when we do get her out."

"What did you see?"

Brown's face had already been pale, but it leeched all color when he faced Walsh. "Enough. He deserves to hang. With any luck, he'll resist once they do locate him and it won't need to go to trial."

Casey watched the two men, her own imagination not needing to stretch too much to imagine Beaumont's predicament.

"Go home, both of you. I promise I will call the second I have any information about who did this or where she is."

…_to be continued at a later date…_


	6. Chapter 6

Very slowly, she curled herself into as small a target as possible. She lay balled up on her side, her legs had been pulled up against her chest until her knees were tucked under her chin and she had wrapped her arms around them tightly. Escape was beyond her just yet - she knew that much from experience. She'd tried several times to drag her drugged and hurting self out of the room only to be caught far short of her goal and forced back to the unyielding floor in front of the ever-running video camera. With the passage of time, he had foregone the bindings and even the drugs, knowing he had done her too much physical damage to allow her the get away unassisted.

She wanted to make the attempt again but she hurt too much to try it quite yet. She thought he might have managed to break her wrist in his last fit of violence and that was only after she knew she had sustained other significant damage to her ribs and very possibly at least one leg. No, unfortunately, she would need to conserve her strength and try again later once she was able to push past the pain and concentrate solely on survival. Since immediate escape was not an available option, she needed to create the smallest target for his rage… and stay as quiet as possible so as not to remind him that he had a easy victim at his mercy.

Victimization didn't sit well with her, despite the full knowledge that there was nothing she could do to quicken her rescue. It was harder still to deal with having ended up on the wrong end of things since she couldn't fully recall how it had come to pass. She remembered waking up that morning to her cell phone, she vaguely remembered answering it despite a sleepy and indecipherable denial from Jason - his hand snaking out from the sheets to swipe at the general location of her phone. She must have gotten up and dressed, left the restaurant… but she was hard pressed to provide any proof of it from her memory.

She felt her breath hitch in her chest at a sickeningly familiar sound from the far side of the room. A door slowly opened and closed again. Footsteps sounded on the cement floor and sent chills racing along her skin. She was too injured to get away and she could feel the sickeningly cold fingers of terror gripping desperately at her but she was damned if she was going to beg for mercy from the psychopath who was holding her captive.

The entire situation was driving her crazy. She wasn't some weakling who could be taken down by the first punk they passed by on the street. She was an unquestionably tough female, despite the badge and firearm. Or maybe in spite of them. She was not a victim, damn it. But if she was so damned tough, how was it that she was lying there on the freezing floor, trembling and waiting for this monster to dish out more of what he had been doing?

Could her day possibly get any worse? In all actuality, she supposed that it could very easily get much worse.

She jerked away from the hesitant touch that started her from her musings. The fingers were first gentle, tracing the line of her shoulder, following the curve of her jaw. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and tried to block out the feel by concentrating on the memory of Jason's hand against her face - tracing her hairline, brushing against her eyebrow. Anything to help her ignore what was sure to come next.

"Shhh… There, there. It isn't so bad as that."

The voice flooded her with dread and she steeled herself for whatever was to come. The soft touch of the fingers became more insistent, less careful, and she sucked in as deep a breath as she could manage and prepared for the worst.

Time passed impossibly slowly, her thoughts refusing to allow the reality of her situation cloud her enforced daydream.

* * * * *

Walsh stood behind the counter of the diner, the grill was on, coffee was brewing and nearly every seat was taken up. It had been this way for three days.

The precinct was nearly empty in their absence. He had been forcibly put on leave, Shraeger spent her days running interference between the café and the detectives who had been assigned to Allison's case, Cole was no better at dealing with Beaumont's sudden disappearance than he was… alternately sitting at the far end of the counter for hours on end and ducking into a local church to light candles and pray until his fiancé came by to collect him and bundle him off to the relative safety of home. Delahoy and Banks had even abandoned their desks for the Formica counter, their files and paperwork scattered across the impromptu workspace. Brown made an appearance several times a day, the expression on his face all the proof Walsh needed to know there was no change in the case. Even Alvarez' presence was becoming common.

Walsh was no good at staying out of things, especially where the safety and wellbeing of someone he loved was concerned. Sure, he could sit in a car in front of the hospital for hours on end waiting to hear from the nurses how Allison was faring, but the waiting without having any inkling of how or where she was just wasn't cutting it.

He had played along with the expectation that he stay out of the initial investigation at first. He had gone back home on that first night, let the diner stay open far later than usual and fed a lot of night owls a lot of bitter coffee. The second day he had managed to stay away only until noon. Shraeger had ended up physically dragging him back to the diner. He would only agree to stay when she swore she would keep him up to date on what was going down. She had proven good to her word and called him at least once an hour even if she had nothing new to report. That had been going on for two days… forty-eight hours.

It had been nearly seventy-two hours since anyone had last laid eyes on Allison Beaumont.

He glanced toward the phone when it rang. It would be Shraeger again. There would be no change in the investigation. Allison would still be missing… the investigators on her case would be moving ever farther from searching for a living person to looking for human remains. Shraeger would never actually say that but he knew the drill. Still, he reached for the phone, feeling the cold weight of the receiver in his hand as he lifted it to his ear.

"Walsh."

"Jason?"

He froze, afraid that if he breathed too hard, he would lose the voice on the other end of the line. His knees turned to water and he sagged against the countertop. In a voice choked with disbelief and cracking with emotion, he managed a single response. "Allison?"

All eyes fell on him but he didn't have time to answer any of their questions. He strained to listen, not wanting to miss even a single breath. Her voice was hoarse and scratched, barely a shell of her usual self but it was sweeter than honey to Walsh's ears.

"Allison, babe, where are you?"

A jagged inhale and she responded, "Dunno."

He glanced at the technician who had been assigned to the diner on the off chance that Allison's abductor might possibly call there. The wire tap would pay off, he hoped. The video feed trace had sure as hell failed to assist them in finding her.

"You okay?" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wished he could take them back. Of course she wasn't okay. He'd seen the videos the bastard had put together. He knew exactly what had happened to her an knew she was a very long way from okay.

He heard a soft rustling and a half-suppressed sob. "No…" A hitched breath preceded the next, "I got away. Maybe he let me go… Found a payphone." The rustling was back and Walsh couldn't tell what she was doing. Her voice was so brittle and shaky, he was afraid to push her lest he lose her.

"We're tracing the call, Al. Just stay on the line. Don't hang up."

"'Kay."

Desperate to gain any insight to where she might be as soon as possible, he gently asked, "Can you see any landmarks where you are? Anything to help us find you?"

She sniffed and groaned. "I don't know. Just buildings… in the city… somewhere." A ragged gasp cut her off.

"Allison? Allison!"

"Still here."

He closed his eyes in relief. "We're going to find you. We'll find you and you'll be safe."

The sob from the other end of the line nearly did him in completely. Swallowing hard against the lump that had risen in his throat, he tried to continue with the reassurances.

By the time the technician touched his arm to let him know the trace had been completed, Shraeger was standing in front of him, her eyes focused on his face, the paper the tech had printed up clutched in her fist. Walsh was torn. Between desperately wanting to be out the door already and racing to the area indicated by the technician and staying on the line so that he could still hear Allison's voice, he had no idea what he should do. Then his eyes fell on her partner, his eyes rimmed with unshed tears. Cole he could trust, despite their pasts, despite everything, he knew he could trust Cole to keep her on the phone, keep her calm.

"Al? Allison, Cole's right here with me. I'm going to let him talk to you. I will be right there. I'm coming to get you."

She sniffed but made no response.

"Allison, I'm coming."

…_to be continued…_


End file.
